Lemonade
by platinumblind
Summary: A moment of betrayal leads to a road of self-discovery. Impractical Jokers fiction based around Beyoncé's 'Lemonade'.
1. Pray You Catch Me

**Lemonade**

A moment of betrayal leads to a road of self-discovery.

Author Note: The only character I own is the main female fictional character. All references to Lemonade and its tracks are copyright to Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and her affiliated writers.

 **1\. Pray You Catch Me**

Three years.

In three years, she never thought it would come down to this. Ear pressed firmly against the mahogany bedroom door as her eyelids fluttered shut over her baby blues.

The emotions washed over her and like waves, they wouldn't stop coming. The freezing cold fear of what might finally come out into the open. The red hot anger, jolted into her senses by his almost piercing lack of loyalty. After all they'd gone through. After all she'd sacrificed to stick by his side. Why?

She heard next to nothing. Mumbles she couldn't quite discern, the occasional echo of a breathy laugh. Seconds and minutes melded into one another as though they were days and months. Her heart was racing and the sound of her blood pumping was making it impossible to hear anything else. Trapped in herself, in her fear.

She imagined him saying all the wrong things, realising he had been caught, swinging the door open, the world war that would be suddenly thrust upon them. Upon their world.

She caught what sounded like an "Okay, bye"... and then nothing. Silence.

Opening her eyes, she peeled herself away from the door and straightened up, hands half-heartedly curled into fists at her sides. She wasn't sure if it was worth the energy to fight; she didn't think she had any left.

In three years, she never thought it would come down to this.

Why?

A trembling pale hand found itself turning the door handle. Mahogany disappeared from in front of her, replaced with the scene of their bedroom. Walls of white, pristine grey carpet under her feet as she took a step inside. Framed photographs of them on the cabinets on either side of their bed, smiling faces taunting her. Back when they had been happy. It seemed so long ago now. Was it a mirage? Had they ever been happy at all?

His bespectacled emerald eyes found hers as he stood on the opposite side of the bed, and she was reminded of just how beautiful he was. His hair was pristine but his facial hair was slightly unkempt, though that was mostly on purpose. He liked it that way. He always did things his way.

There was only silence as they stared at one another, and she was startled by the way the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile. He always had such a beautiful, infectious smile. Was he smiling at her?

She blinked, and realised she had imagined it. Nowadays he only smiled at her in her dreams.

Barely acknowledging her, he placed his phone on the bedside cabinet and proceeded to walk away. He brushed past her, and she was sure he had mumbled something about a shower, although his voice in her head felt like static now. There had been no smile, no sparkle in his eyes, no affection in his words or his actions anymore.

 _Maybe it's a cause for concern..._

A clicking sound signalled the lock of the bathroom door down the hall behind her, and it snapped her back to reality. She reached with both hands to tighten her blonde ponytail, and then in an instant she was across the room. Nausea clawed at her, fear betrayed her with the tremble of her hands as she gripped at his phone, entering the pass code she had spent weeks cautiously trying to discover, feeling like an assassin all the times she had lurked behind him every time he made a phone call or sent a message. But deep down she knew, he had been the real assassin all along.

Menu. Phone. Call log. The same number over and over, under a man's name but she knew better. Back. Menu. Messages. Inbox. The same number. The same words he had once used on her, the same sweetened tones, the same growth and battle and defusion of incredible sexual tension that had once been between just the two of them. Her baby blues betrayed her as they bounced back and forth to read the words in front of them.

 _I think I'm falling for you._

Those words were her final undoing. Suddenly everything in her line of sight was blurry, drowning in her liquid emotions. Her hands were empty. The phone fell to the floor. So lost as she drowned, her mind hadn't even bothered to register the sound of the bathroom door unlocking.

"Kelsey!"

She dashed past him, grateful that her body had waited until she was out of his sight and inside the bathroom before it betrayed her and she collapsed to the floor in a sobbing heap. She couldn't stop the trembling, it took her three tries to reach up behind her and lock the door. Pulling her knees close to her chest, she struggled to breathe as she wailed. She had been right all along. She wanted the sound of his voice to stop harassing her ears; he had already done enough.

Minutes of him calling her name, pounding his fist on the door, pleading her to speak to him... the minutes felt like eternity as she shook violently with her sobs, grateful for her sudden ability to stop wailing out loud.

And then all at once, he was quiet. The sound of her shaky breaths were suddenly a solo act. She knew he was still there, though. She could still feel his presence on the other side of the door. It wasn't a comforting presence anymore.

Betrayal.

In three years, she never thought it would come down to this.

 _"What are you doing, my love?"_


	2. Hold Up

**_Author Note: Just a reminder, the only characters I own in this are Kelsey and Kim. Everyone else belongs to themselves. Any reference to Lemonade is copyright to Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and her affiliated writers._**

2\. Hold Up

Kelsey's thumbs were moving at a mile a minute as she typed out a text message. In the last hour her trembling had subsided, but every so often she would breathe in a shuddery breath and she was yanked violently back down into the reality in which she found herself. Her entire body ached; from being on the bathroom floor for so long, or from the emotional weight of all that had just taken place? She wasn't sure which. Perhaps both, she silently reasoned.

"I need you to come over and get me. Please. I don't want to explain it until you're here, but... I think things are over between Sal and I."

She had literally only just pressed send and locked her phone when it began buzzing in her hands. Her tired, puffy eyes glanced down at it, but she didn't even need to look to know who it was. As she slid her finger across the screen to answer the call, she slumped forward, and her emotions betrayed her again.

"Kim... " More tears slid down her cheeks, as many already had done, leaving streaks on her usually perfectly made up face.

"Ten minutes, girl, and I'll be there, and that dude better hope he ain't hangin' around. Be ready outside."

Kelsey nodded, forgetting for a moment that her best friend couldn't see it, and then the phone call was over.

She wondered if he was still on the other side of the door. There had been no sound or movement for a while, but she reasoned that she hadn't really been paying much attention.

When, five minutes later, she had gathered up the strength to stand up and pull the door handle towards her to let herself out, she was greeted with nothing. Silence. Emptiness. He was gone.

Wherever he had decided to go, she was, for once, grateful for his ability to turn and run from a crisis.

* * *

It was May and it wasn't a cold day, but as she sauntered down the street next to her best friend of half a decade, Kelsey was shivering. Wrapping her arms round her tiny frame, she noted how her hands felt like ice. Her mind was on overdrive. Her head was pounding. Thirst and nausea and heartbreak and fury all seemed to conjoin to pump its way around her entire body, as if it had replaced the blood that kept her alive. Just a shell now. Just a ruined, smashed shell.

She didn't want to talk about it, she just wanted to run and run and never stop running. Run until she could find herself a safe distance away from the explosion that had just ripped her world in two. Run until her body would finally give out on her and she could sleep as she wanted. She had battled with these types of thoughts her entire life, but being with him had once brought out the best in her, helped her overcome the demons that sent her to the darkest of mind palaces. With him, she had been the person she never considered she could be.

Where had it all gone so horribly wrong?

She didn't want to talk about it. She physically couldn't do it.

"You need to tell me what he's done, girl. We've walked ten blocks already and you've not said a goddamn word."

Kim, clearly, had other plans.

Kelsey made them walk ten more blocks before she uttered her first word in the entire conversation.

"Cheater." She spat the word out bitterly as though it was a shot of something she hated the taste of.

Kim stopped in her tracks, her jet black straightened hair flying round with her as she spun her head to look at Kelsey incredulously, suddenly going on a massive rant that started with "... Sal? Seriously?" and ended a few minutes later with "... it ain't even right, I'm gonna snap that Cuban cigar like a goddamn twig when I see him -"

But the heartbroken blonde wasn't listening to a single word. As she replayed the events of the past few hours in her head, she felt a sickening feeling of rage build up inside her. She had stopped dead on the sidewalk, and was staring ahead of her. Kim's voice trailed off, deep brown eyes following the line sight of the baby blues to see what the younger female was so fixated on. It didn't take her long to figure it out.

Kelsey found the strength in herself to begin moving forward again, eyes narrowing as they stayed fixed on her intended target. It was taunting her, almost beckoning her towards it. Silently reasoning that it had been placed there purposely and that it was up to her to do something about it, she walked a little further, head tilted to the side, almost zombified as she stopped a few feet in front of it.

"Kels, don't look at it, girl," Kim shouted out, eyeing her best friend's movements nervously.

Kim's voice was static. All that Kelsey could focus on was the advertisement board in front of her and the brightly coloured poster inside it. It was only about a foot taller than her, but to her it towered over her like a cruel, laughing giant. She focused on the words emblazoned right at the top: Impractical Jokers Live on Tour!

And then she allowed herself to gaze at each of their faces in turn. Three years she had known them all. She wondered what the days' events would do to her friendship with Brian, with Joey and with James. For a moment, her fury was replaced with an overwhelming sense of sadness about just how much she was really about to lose.

As her eyes met Sal's, she felt so many things. Confusion, fury, disgust, complete and utter sadness: why had he done this to her? Why did he honestly think this was the right thing to do? Was there an explanation? No, no, she muttered to herself under her breath. She couldn't reason any of this away.

 _What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you._

With that, the fury overpowered her completely. In an instant, life was in slow motion as she lunged forward with a tightly balled fist, straight at Sal's face on the poster through the glass. She fell forward on her knees onto the pavement, landing on shattered glass, seeing red flowing from her fist, feeling searing pain along with the intensity of the stares of shocked strangers on the other side of the street, hearing the sound of Kim shouting and running toward her in her noisy high heels.

"Girl, are you crazy? Shit, are you alright?" Kim was frantic, kneeling down on the ground to inspect her best friend's injured hand with wild eyes.

Kelsey let her own eyes flutter shut, and as she drew in a deep breath, all she could do was laugh.


	3. Don't Hurt Yourself

**Author Note: I own Kelsey, Kim and nothing else. All references to Lemonade and its tracks are copyright to Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and her affiliated writers.**

 **I may expand a bit further on back story in the next chapter if possible - difficult since I wanted to try to mirror the artistic simplicity of Lemonade and not make it too long winded. Let's see how it goes. Anyway, enjoy and please feel free to review.**

 **3\. Don't Hurt Yourself**

It was very late in the evening before Kelsey finally stumbled through the front door of the home that, she realised, wouldn't be her home for much longer once she braved the inevitable confrontation with the man she loved.

She raised her arm to glance at her watch, screwing her face up at the slight prickle of pain that radiated through her bandaged hand. The street incident had led to a trip to the emergency room, which had led to a small number of stitches, which then led to Kelsey insisting on heading to a bar with Kim. Kim had been reluctant; only relenting when Kelsey tearfully explained that she couldn't yet bring herself to face Sal and deal with what was happening. She loved him; oh, how she loved him.

But he had hurt her. Oh, how he had hurt her. Four Long Island Iced Teas later, Kelsey was filled with enough Dutch courage to deal with the war zone she knew she was walking into. It wouldn't be a war zone when she started, she thought, but there would be one when she was done.

She was exhausted. Different emotions had been flowing through her and tearing her apart all day, and her energy level was at zero. The tears had dried up, somehow. They had resurfaced at the first drink, but disappeared by the second. "It doesn't matter how bad things are for you guys, how far apart you've been, that doesn't give him reason to reach out to someone else to find the things he could have easily searched out from you if he'd tried! Damn, girl, don't reason this away, and don't let him reason it either."

Kim had been right, and that mini speech had been all it took to make Kelsey's rage bubble back up to the surface. The rage was still bubbling fiercely away as she slid her front door key into the lock and turned it, confused by the deathly silence that greeted her.

She was even more confused when she closed the front door behind her, turning back to find herself greeted with the concerned face of Joe Gatto.

"Jesus Kels, we've been so worried about you!" came Joe's first words, but Kelsey barely acknowledged them as she pushed past him to enter the living room.

There he was.

"Kelsey."

Sal looked as exhausted as she felt, sporting the same red puffy eyes that she'd suffered with only a few hours earlier. Usually the sight would break her heart. Seeing him upset was once her kryptonite. Now it just fuelled her fury.

She took a step towards him, acutely aware of Joe's sudden presence behind her in the doorway. For some reason, Sal's first instinct was to stand up from the couch. He tilted his head to one side as he stared at her, and she just watched him, unimpressed, as he struggled to find words and instead bit down on his lower lip, struggling with tears.

"I'm sor-"

He didn't even finish the sentence before Kelsey lunged towards him in a heartbeat, her non-bandaged hand making sudden contact with the side of his face.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!" came her hysterical scream. Vulcano flinched, straightening up as he held his hand to his sore cheek. He had no words; just stunned silence answered her rhetorical inquiry. She noticed Sal make eye contact with Gatto behind her, and that was enough for her to feel the need to strike again. Taking a step towards him, she grabbed his face by the chin and tilted it down so they were face to face.

Kelsey's brain was immediately clouded by memories, and as her eyes scanned him, she caught herself glancing at his lips and remembered the feeling of kissing him. The memory caught her off guard like a bullet to the chest, and she was betrayed by a single tear escaping down her cheek. He'd seen it; she knew he had. His facial features softened as he gazed at her. He knew he'd done such a horrific thing. He didn't want to lose her like this.

 _You ain't trying hard enough, you ain't loving hard enough, you don't love me deep enough._

She let the fire within her stomp out the emotion. Fearful greens met hardened blues. He would not win this one.

"I'm done."

With that, she released her grip on his beautiful face and spun round. Finally, she gave Gatto her attention. He looked shell shocked.

"I'm done, Joey."

She didn't even wait for a response as she headed for the stairs. She loved Joe to pieces; she wouldn't dare engage him in further conversation at that moment. She knew it would make the sting worse.

In less than an hour, Kelsey had packed two suitcases, turned every single one of their photographs face down, left her house keys on the bed, and headed down to the front door. As she pulled it open for the very last time, the sound of a sob entered her eardrums, and it pulled at her heart strings. More than anything, she wanted to run to him, to give him the chance to make this all alright again.

She ran a hand over her face, the hand still slightly sore from the slap she had given him, and a sigh escaped her lips. She knew she had to be strong.

 _We've just gotta let it be, let it be, let it be..._


	4. Sorry

**4\. Sorry**

The relentless throb of the music's bass was already giving Kelsey a pounding headache as she strolled up to the entrance of the bar. It had been a never ending day of moving, box unpacking and assembling of furniture, and all she wanted to do was go to sleep.

Her best friend, however, had other ideas.

Barely a soul bothered to acknowledge the blonde's presence as she took her first few steps into the building, but it did nothing to dispel her intense feeling of self consciousness as she tugged firmly at the back of her short scarlet dress. She felt uncomfortable. Silently berating herself for being so silly - although recent events had made her feel nothing but insecure and she couldn't help it - her tired eyes scanned the room, barely taking long to find her dark haired friend stood at the bar, two cocktails clutched in her hands.

"Well, look at you!" greeted Kim loudly above the background noise, and far too cheerily for Kelsey's liking, "Girl, you look amazing!"

A disbelieving snort escaped Kelsey's lips as she removed a cocktail from Kim's grip. "I feel like I could sleep for a decade."

Kim signalled to a nearby table with a nod of her head, and together they strolled over. As Kelsey started to sit down on the stool, an overly enthusiastic redhead brushed past her, almost knocking over Kelsey's drink. Kelsey responded with a look of disdain, received by no one. As she watched the redhead walk away, a thought came to torturous fruition in her brain. _Could it have been her?_

"A decade of sleep, huh? Well, that should be enough to help you get over Vulcano," Kim spoke with a raised eyebrow, taking a sip of her drink. Kelsey shuffled in her seat awkwardly, her hand shooting up in the air to halt the line of conversation.

"No, no. I don't want to hear his name. Don't say Vulcano to me. Don't say Sal. Don't say anything. Just..." Kelsey exhaled, as if she had been holding her breath for far too long, "... don't."

Kim brushed Kelsey's hand back down nonchalantly, responding by pushing the blonde's drink closer to her. "Girl, I'm just saying, you can't avoid talking about it forever. You gotta let it out."

Kelsey silently admitted in her head that Kim was partly right. It had been a few weeks now. In that time she'd spent so much time taking care of her new living arrangements, as well as convincing her boss that she needed a couple of days off work to actually move into the new place, that she'd barely thought of anything else. She'd barely slept, barely eaten, barely cried or missed Sal or even thought of him at all. Denial? Possibly, but she wasn't prepared to deal with it just yet. There simply wasn't the time.

Kelsey spared a moment of thought for her phone, sitting at the bottom of her handbag, taunting her. Last time she checked it told her she had 12 new messages and 18 missed calls. She hadn't even bothered to open them; she made the disastrous mistake of looking at the words of the first one. _I miss you. Please give me a chance to explain all of this._

She didn't look after that.

"Can we just... not tonight?" Kelsey pleased, wrapping a hand round the bottom of her cocktail glass.

"Alright."

Kelsey couldn't believe she'd won for once. Kim rarely took no for an answer.

* * *

The cocktails were still flowing when the clock hit 3am. Kelsey and Kim had found themselves on the heaving dancefloor, twisting and shaking while simultaneously shouting that "If he like it, then he shoulda put a ring on it". Kelsey had stopped forgetting to check that her dress was sufficiently pulled down. Which, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to bother the small crowd of males that had descended upon the pair on the dancefloor. Giggles. Twerking (when had Kelsey learned how to do that?). Hip touching. Seductive whispers. Drunken hysterical laughter. The room was buzzing. Kelsey's head felt foggy.

The dizzy blonde was distracted by a strange vibration on her side. Noting that it must have been coming from inside her handbag, she reached a hand in, pulling out her phone. Eyes hit the screen. Laughter fell from her mouth before she had even realised it.

Sal.

She'd slid her finger lazily across the screen before she had even realised it. Put the phone to her ear before she had even considered a second thought. Kim was facing the other way; she hadn't even noticed that Kelsey was gone from the dancefloor in a heartbeat, suddenly slumped against the club window outside, letting the cool New York air hit her like a smack in the face. Bad idea. Terrible idea.

"Kels?" He sounded a million miles away. Standing upright was a mammoth task in itself. Even with the tinge of concern, his voice was like silk to her eardrums. She had forgotten what he'd sounded like. God, she missed him. Asshole.

"Salvatore Edward Anthony Vulcano... I fucking hate you," she slurred, and then she laughed, far too loudly.

"You're drunk." He sounded irritated. She was amused that he thought he even had the right.

"You're a cheater, but hey, we can't have it all, can we babe?"

Silence. Kelsey turned around and leaned back against the glass, grinning stupidly to herself, eyes sliding shut. Words floated around in her mind; she was desperate to pick the ones that would hurt him most.

"Three years I stuck by you, motherfucker! Three years of your shit, three years of pussy footing around you and your fuckin' compulsions and needs and being your last priority behind your Mom and Gatto and Quinn and Murr and whoever the fuck else-"

"Where are you? I need to see you."

Kelsey snorted, eyes snapping open at the sound of the bar door to the side of her. It took a few moments for her to register that Kim was suddenly stood beside her, not quite as paralytic as Kelsey but still stumbling slightly in her heels.

"I ain't even your problem anymore, go and call the bitch you've had bouncing on your dick for however long it's been. I told you, I'm done. Stop fuckin' calling me."

Forgetting how to end the call, she let her eyelids fall closed again and held her phone out in front of Kim, almost hitting her in the side of the cheek with it. Kim rolled her eyes, snatching the phone from her best friend's hand.

"Vulcano, you don't wanna fuckin' be talkin' to me, so I'd do the smart thing if I was you and hang up. Kels is with me, and I tell you what, she ain't even thinkin' 'bout you... she got her pick of any dude here and they'd all be a fuckin' better choice than your cheatin' ass." With that, Kim ended the call, and held the power button down to switch the phone off completely as she leaned forward to put it back in Kelsey's handbag.

"Asshole," Kelsey muttered bitterly as she attempted to stand up straight, and Kim knew the comment hadn't been directed at her.

"Come on, girl," came Kim's slightly slurred voice as she threw an arm round Kelsey's shoulders, "Let's get some fucking food."


End file.
